Q&A for Teens: Having a Boyfriend

Is there something wrong with dating before being ready to marry?

I'm a 15-year-old girl. I've been told that I shouldn't associate with boys until I'm ready to marry, but I've also been told boys can make great friends. I'm a bit confused about this. Is it wrong to spend time with boys, or to have boys as friends? Also, on a related topic, is being shomer negiah (not touching the opposite sex) actually a Jewish law, or is it just a custom? Is there something wrong with dating before being ready to marry?

Lauren Roth's Answer

Baltimore has humongous worms. I mean man-eating-sized worms. Why am I telling you this? No, not because I think boys are worms. (I actually have four boys in my home, and I like them very much!)

I’m telling you about the worms in Baltimore because I walked through them this past Shabbos at my cousin’s bar mitzvah. It was raining cats and dogs on Friday night, and the sidewalks of Baltimore were absolute rivers, with loads and loads of humongous worms in them. But many of the family members who attended the bar mitzvah won’t drive on Shabbos, and so we walked through the wormy sidewalk lakes to get home after the celebration. The family members who drove home in their cars might have been warmer and dryer than we were—scratch that—the family members who drove home in their cars definitely were warmer and dryer than we were, but I have to tell you: we had a blast!

We were singin’ and dancin’ in the rain, worms and all! We made up a marching song to help my four-year-old keep walking: “I’m wet/ I’m cold/ there are worms on the soles/ of my feet, feet, feet feet feet/ BUT walking in the rain/ like this with you/ is neat, neat, neat, neat neat neat!”

What I’m saying is: different strokes for different folks.

I grew up with boys and girls mixed together in school and in the synagogue and in the Jewish youth groups we all attended. But my children are all growing up in a community which keeps boys and girls separate until they are ready to date for marriage. Personally, I think my children have an emotionally healthier situation. Do you know how many boys I hurt when I was a teenaged girl? Do you know how many of my teenaged friends were hurt by boys? And the reason was that we were too young and uncommitted to do those relationships well. I’m pleased that my children will have time to mature and to grow and to learn how to be a proper, giving partner before they enter into the arena of male-female relationships. They’re less likely to get hurt, and they’re less likely to hurt a partner that way.

I also think my children have more opportunity to develop themselves as people without the distractions of a romantic relationship because they will only date once they are ready to marry. My friends and I, on the other hand, growing up in a setting where there were boyfriends and girlfriends, were very focused on who’s going with whom, and who’s breaking up with whom, and all the associated drama. Drama that was played out on an amateur stage by very young actors and actresses, who hurt their partners consistently (albeit unintentionally).

In my opinion, God is very wise. He knew that male-female relationships take maturity, understanding, and a deep ability to give. All traits that people have much more of at age 20 than they do at age 10 or 15 or 17. Therefore, He set in Jewish law the precept that boys and girls should not touch each other before they are married. Do you know how many people would not be hurt if they kept that law?

I know in some communities, boys and girls are together in school and in the synagogue and in youth groups and in community events. Personally, I have come to realize that separation between the sexes before marriage can benefit everyone and save a lot of unnecessary pain.

I also think it’s beautiful when your husband or your wife is your very first and your only “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” that you’ve ever had. That bond is so much more special than it would be if you had had many boyfriends/girlfriends before. Can you imagine no memories of any romantic partner other than your very own spouse? How intensely special that would be! And in communities where boys and girls stay separate, that’s exactly what happens.

I remember having a discussion with a fellow teenaged girl when I was in high school. I, the observant Jew, was talking about the emotional wisdom of saving physical and sexual contact for marriage. She was arguing that sharing her body with many romantic partners during her teenaged years was beautiful and fun. I remember looking at her eyes when she said that statement, and seeing doubt, sadness, and a disbelief in her own words there. I couldn’t imagine touting promiscuity as beautiful, and my hunch was confirmed when she continued talking to me about it for quite a long time. If she really thought her promiscuous activities were “beautiful” and “fun,” why would she keep asking me about the rationales behind saving oneself for one deep, committed relationship?

When two mature people are committed to staying together for the rest of their lives, both of them are much less likely to get hurt than when two people are just together as relatively immature kids out to have a good time.

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About the Author

Lauren Roth, MSW, LSW, is a graduate of Princeton University, a Marriage and Parenting Therapist in private practice in Lakewood, New Jersey, and an inspirational speaker across North America and on the high seas. She is the weekly "Dear Dr. Lauren" columnist for Ami Magazine. Mrs. Roth and her husband, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth, are the parents of six children.

Visitor Comments: 14

(10)
ZR,
May 19, 2013 9:46 AM

Halacha

I would like to add that it is improtant to realize that there are halachic issues here. R Moshe Feinstien ZT"L writes about this very clearly and discusses how this is halachacially not the correct thing to do. Even in the Sefer written by a Bnai Akiva alumnus "Kedoshim Tihiyu" he discusses these same halachic issues.So as beautiful as the emotional reasons why it is better to wait, for the Halachically committed Jew reading this, there is a more basic reason. It says so in the Shulchan Aruch!

(9)
Robert Dorsky,
May 19, 2013 2:34 AM

dating in the secular coummunity won't change

Lauren: Your thoughts about frumm dating are beautiful but they will have no impact on the secular Jewish community. The Orthodox community already gets it. Good luck for trying.

(8)
elana,
May 17, 2013 4:20 PM

learning how to be in a successful relationship - you need to have some before the final one.

I have a diferent perspective than the article. First, If you allow your children to grow up with out being friends {just plain platonic friends} with the opposite sex, then your children will grow up not being able to relate socially with the opposite sex. they will be socially retarded. they will not be able to have a mature relationship at 'marrying age", because part of their development has not occurred. therefore, you need to allow your children to be friends with th eopposite sex; but within guidelines. friends yes; but sex - no. no promiscuity . boyfriend/girlfriend relationships are also important because again, they need to learn how to be in a relationship before they are married so that they will have a successful marriage. marriage is very difficult. you need some experience in the give and take of relationships before walking down to the chupah. again - i am not talking about sex. that can wait until marriage - and should. but learning how to be in a successful relationship - you need to have some before the final one.

Shoshana -Jerusalem,
May 19, 2013 8:55 AM

to Elana and everybody else

The experience of millions of Jews over a period of thousands of years prove your theory wrong. Marriage were always stable, loving and giving. The children of those marriages, likewise. Only in our day and age things have changed and look at the mess so many people are in. The idea of platonic friendship doesn't go, first of all, it will turn into a sex relationship and even if not, like I said above, it's absolutely a proven fact that it is not necessary. Come see my beautiful Chareidi children, none of them ever spoke to a girl / boy until they were into shiduchim. See their beautiful, holy, successful marriages. No thoughts of anybody else, no comparisons. Young people should be taught that by using restraint now, they are investing in a healthy marriage later on.

eli,
July 28, 2013 6:59 PM

one thing will lead to a mother i mean another

one thing will lead to a mother i mean another , once u start u cant stop.
also see how many people put on masks for the opposite sex

sara,
January 16, 2014 7:39 PM

how wrong!

sorry elana! but what u are saying has been proven wrong time and again! look at how many happy couples there are, having great marriages, who never had friends of the opposite gender...do u think they are socially retarded? and then look at just how many divorces and unhappy marriages there are these days, in the societies where its ok to have boyfriends...sorry, but its totally not ok to touch, its actually just as bad as eating pork, or driving on shabbos...i know its very hard imagining life this way...but take it from a young married girl(a year and a half in total, so far!)it is so so worth it to save those feelings just for one guy....g'luck!

(7)
Raphaelle Do Lern Hwei,
May 17, 2013 2:18 PM

Coed versus Boys' School

I faced the same problem when my son went to Primary School from a Coed kindergarten. The 'Ivy League' schools nearby were mostly coed (Nanyang Primary, Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary, Fairfield Methodist Primary). He got into a coed school which taught Chinese as First Language. The culture is a lot like the Orthodox Jewish (hence single sex) school. Education emphasizes on relationship as friends and loyalty rather than on boy girl relationships even when the little boys and girls share the same class, they are not seated together. I was from a single sex school till 16. It depends on individual students and their families. some of us surreptitiously dated boys from the nearby schools outside school hours on reaching 14, though our School Principal (who lived nearby like most of us) publicly singled out those whom she caught hanging out with boys in the neighbourhood did during assembly and told them that there are better things to do.

(6)
Jerome,
May 17, 2013 10:33 AM

Becareful...

It's true, hurt is not a good thing, it can change you into being something else but sometimes hurt makes us strong in many areas in life. But the best thing is to wait for the right time than to learn one of life's painful experiences. You don't want to enter into something that you will find difficult to come out of, because once you start sharing your life to somebody, your dreams, you hopes, and you connect emotionally with them, it's difficult to break off from them because you are attached to one another, and once that relationship breaks your mind becomes messed up and you can be hurt very deeply, because sometimes you enter a relationship just to be friends, but you can never know what can develop out of that, that's why you need to be careful and stay far away because you don't want to give the best of your thoughts, dreams and life to somebody who will leave and be with another person. It's very pain when you finally get married, and the man/woman of your life is finally standing next to you but you have nothing to offer to them, only left overs from the past. This is the mistake of many young people, they can have a really awesome life if they would listen (especial to someone older - because they've been there before), but as always, they make the same mistakes... Becareful because everything starts in friendship, i know because i am a good friend too and was a good friend, but i am hurt now with only little to hope for. She was my friend and very dear to me,overtime i started to like her more and more and she started to be my closest friend, i shared everything (But there was not physical connection at all, it was pure), but then she didn't want to be my friend anymore, it still hurt even today, so becareful cause you won't enjoy this ride when it happens to you. If u want to have a boyfriend go ahead, noone wil stop u, but remember warnings are there for a purpose. But there are promises to those who obey and abstain. Wait for your one true Friend. :)

(5)
David I,
May 17, 2013 4:04 AM

Should ten girls have teen boy friends only with certain rules.

My sixteen year daughter is in her Junior year at high school. She said she met this seventeen year old that is a Senior in the same high school she goes to He has his own car. My daughter said that he wants to take her out to dinner. I said that he has to come over first and I must meet him first. We met him and I learned that he states he is an Atheist. I said you are welcome to your beliefs of course but we in my family live by G-D`s laws and moral code of conduct. I told him the any where the Bikini bathing suit fits is not where he can touch my daughter.I will need to know where they will go and I will be there to moniitor them from a far. If he thinks he can make her a Mother before she is his wife then I WILL him arrested and charged with Statutory Rape and brought to jail.. They dated twice and he moved on to other girls whose parents don`t about there kids.

Leah,
May 17, 2013 1:33 PM

Not so sure

....but why would you want to take the risk of Heaven forbid waiting until a potential stat rape issue arises?
Boys and girls physical desire is strong...the boy's may even be stronger. I don't know if I would trust this....

Thank you so much for the article! I used to be almost exactly like this! But, B'H, not anymore!

(3)
Annie,
May 17, 2013 1:46 AM

I was intererested to hear on Dr Phil and also on a documentary here about promiscuity that when the boys & young men were asked if the girls who were giving away free samples were the girls that they'd take to the school ball/take home to meet the parents/ marry...the answer was 'No!'. In a tone of voice that made it clear that this was a silly question to which the answer was obvious.

(2)
Anonymous,
May 13, 2013 10:03 PM

Thank you.

(1)
Anonymous,
May 12, 2013 2:23 PM

Lauren--Re: Your friend who was sexually active. Perhaps she asked you about your philosophy merely because it was so different from her own. I have friends with different beliefs and I'm always interested in hearing why they feel as they do. Does that mean I am lacking in any way? Hardly. Re: Walking home from the Bar Mitzvah in the rain. I bet your kids will have happy memories of that! Finally, I give you a lot of credit for being observant when so many of your peers were not. I'm actually the only (and I do mean ONLY) observant Jewish person in my family right now. It isn't easy, but it sure is worthwhile!! Happy Mother's Day to you.

I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

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